Peru judge grants Berenson NY holiday (AP)

LIMA, Peru ? A Peruvian court has ruled that paroled U.S. activist Lori Berenson and her toddler son can travel to New York for the holidays, she and her father confirmed on Friday.

A three-judge appeals court on Wednesday overturned a lower court judge's ruling denying Berenson permission to travel, said Guillermo Gonzalez, spokesman for Peru's judicial system. He said she could leave the country from Dec. 16 to Jan. 11.

"I'm very glad that Peru is respecting its laws and human rights," Berenson's father, Mark, told The Associated Press by phone from Manhattan. "As Lori says, if she doesn't come home, let Interpol arrest her."

"She is not trying to ever break the law again," he added.

If she doesn't return to Peru by Jan. 11, the country's government could seek her extradition and return her to prison for violating parole, Gonzalez said.

Lori Berenson was paroled last year after serving 15 years for aiding leftist rebels, but she cannot leave Peru permanently until her sentence ends in 2015.

Her father said he is "petrified" a negative local reaction to the New York visit could prevent the trip, including celebrating his 70th birthday Dec. 29.

"My worry is that there's going to be screaming to stop this," he said. Some Peruvians consider her a terrorist, opposed her parole and have publicly insulted her on the street.

He said that as far as he knew, his 42-year-old daughter was still trying to buy a ticket for herself and son Salvador, who is 2 1/2.

"It's not going to be easy," he said. Flights are heavily booked and prices high at this time of year.

Reached by the AP, Lori Berenson confirmed her court permission but added by text message: "I am not speaking to the press."

She has been repeatedly hounded and mobbed by Peruvian news media, which has occasionally frightened young Salvador. Last month, one TV channel obtained her new address and showed video of her home on television, her father said.

"It was very dangerous," he added. "The (U.S.) Embassy complained."

"It's just not fair to Salvador or to her," he said. "They used her like she's a celebrity and she just wants to be a low-profile person and get on with her life and be a good citizen."

He said he would appeal to President Ollanta Humala to send his daughter home.

Humala could by law commute her sentence but has not indicated whether he might do so. The AP sought to reach a presidential palace spokesman for comment but its calls were not immediately returned.

Lori Berenson is separated from Salvador's father, Anibal Apari, whom she met in prison and who serves as her lawyer. He told the AP he signed documents letting her travel with the child.

Mark Berenson said his daughter is looking forward to seeing relatives she hasn't met since her 20s, including his 96-year-old aunt, and that he wants his grandson, who loves trees, see the New York Botanical Garden's holiday display.

Since her initial parole in May 2010, Lori Berenson repeatedly regret for aiding the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

Arrested in 1995, the former MIT student was accused of helping the rebels plan an armed takeover of Congress, an attack that never happened.

A military court convicted her the following year and sentenced her to life in prison for sedition. But after intense U.S. government pressure, she was retried in civil courts in 2001 and sentenced to 20 years for terrorist collaboration.

Berenson was unrepentant at the time of her arrest, but softened during years of sometimes harsh prison conditions, eventually being praised as a model prisoner.

Yet she is viewed by many as a symbol of the 1980-2000 rebel conflict that claimed some 70,000 lives. The fanatical Maoist Shining Path movement did most of the killing, while Tupac Amaru was a lesser player.

Berenson has acknowledged helping the rebels rent a safe house, where authorities seized a cache of weapons. But she insists she didn't know guns were being stored there. She denies ever belonging to Tupac Amaru or engaging in violent acts.

In an interview with the AP last year, Berenson said she was deeply troubled at having become Peru's "face of terrorism."

Its most famous prisoner, she also became a politically convenient scapegoat, she said.

___

Associated Press writer Martin Villena contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_lori_berenson

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Social Gaming's Big IPO | Adweek

Zynga, the maker of social gaming hits like FarmVille and CityVille, is set to start trading on the NASDAQ today at a price of $10 per share, valuing the company at $8.9 million.

The offering comes at the end of a big year for tech IPOs, with companies continually claiming the title of "biggest Internet IPO since Google,"?starting with LinkedIn in May, which was topped by Groupon last month. Now?Zynga is claiming the title?at the current pricing, the company will raise at least $1 billion (the amount could be as high as $1.15 billion, depending on whether the underwriters choose to sell additional shares).

In recent months, the public markets have shown a pattern of embracing Internet companies, then cooling over time. Pandora and Demand Media, for example, are trading well below their opening day prices, and although that's not true for Groupon and LinkedIn, even they have seen prices fall after the early excitement. Zynga's path to an IPO hasn't been smooth either, with the offering delayed after it was first announced in July.

On Thursday, Dun & Bradstreet tech specialist Lee Simmons told?Adweek?that Zynga has some key differences from the other tech companies that went public this year: "For one thing, it's profitable." Zynga, he argued, has shown that free-to-play games, with users paying for virtual goods, are "a sustainable business model." (In its IPO filing, Zynga says it brought in $828 million in revenue and profits of $31 million during the first nine months of 2011?so revenue was up and profits were down from the same period last year.)

Zynga will be the first social gaming company to go public (competitors like Playdom and Playfish have been acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars), and also the first public company built primarily on Facebook's application platform.

Not everyone shares Simmons' optimism. Earlier this week, Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia gave Zynga an "underperform" rating, saying that the company's growth seems to be slowing.

Even Simmons said Zynga has an Achiles heel: "It really needs to loosen its dependence on Facebook." By tapping into Facebook's social capabilities, Zynga has built an audience of hundreds of millions of monthly users (it was averaging 227 million at the end of September), but that also makes the company vulnerable if its relationship with Facebook deteriorates. Even Zynga acknowledged the risk in its IPO filing, and it's trying to address the issue with intiatives like an upcoming, stand-alone gaming site.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/social-gamings-big-ipo-137161

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U.S. News - Penn State sex abuse scandal: Sandusky legal move ...

Jerry Sandusky waived his preliminary hearing Tuesday in a surprise decision that moves him toward a trial. NBC's Michael Isikoff has more.

By James Eng

Will he plead guilty? Will he go to trial?

Legal experts and observers were left guessing Tuesday after Former Penn State football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky waived a preliminary hearing in his sex-abuse trial.

The move?is raising some perplexing?questions about his legal strategy.

Criminal-defense attorneys not connected with the case say it?s highly unusual for a defense attorney to waive the hearing if the case is going to trial. One major reason for doing so would be if there?s a plea deal in the works.

?I can?t speak for him (Sandusky?s lawyer), but if it?s going to trial ? I?m having a (preliminary) hearing,? says John Kusturiss, a Pennsylvania criminal defense lawyer and former assistant district attorney who has handled hundreds of criminal cases. ?Conversely, if I think I?m going to plea, there have been many I?ve waived.?

But both sides in the Sandusky case say there have been no plea negotiations.

?It?s actually quite confusing in my opinion,? Pennsylvania defense attorney Michael J. Malloy told msnbc.com.

?Typically it would be a sign that there?s a plea deal going on, but the attorney general has said there are no indications a deal is going on. Secondly, the defense attorney said they were getting ready to go to trial,? said Malloy, who has tried more than 100 jury trials, including sex assault cases, in state and federal courts.

Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's defense attorney, says there will be no plea negotiations. "This is a fight to the death," he told reporters.

Amendola called the cancellation of?Tuesday's hearing a "tactical decision" to prevent the?accusers from reiterating the same claims they made to the grand jury.

Senior Deputy Attorney General E. Marc Costanzo also said there had been no discussions about a plea bargain. He said the move to waive the hearing "provides maximum protection to most importantly the victims in this case."

"It avoids their having to testify for a second time," Costanzo told reporters. "They will of course testify at a trial in the case."

A preliminary hearing would have allowed Sandusky?s legal team to see and evaluate Sandusky?s accusers face to face. Defense lawyers use what?s gleaned from the hearing to prepare for trial. They look for inconsistencies in what?s said by the accusers at the preliminary hearing versus what?s said at trial.

In a preliminary hearing, a defense attorney can find out ?how sympathetic a witness is, how good a witness is. You don?t know that when you hear them testify for the first time (at trial),? Kusturiss said.

?You have the advantage of listening to the victims testify, which I would think you would want to take advantage of if you went to trial, for any possible inconsistencies as well as help prepare your defense,? said defense attorney Scott Galloway.

By waiving the hearing, "you give up all that info," Malloy says.

?It?s more confusing than anything. It?s nothing that I?ve seen. I don?t really understand it. The general rule of thumb is, if you?re going to go to trial you definitely should have a preliminary hearing.?

Sandusky, 67, has maintained his innocence on 52 charges of molesting 10 boys over more than a decade. Sandusky told reporters as he left the courthouse that he would "stay the course, to fight for four quarters" and "wait for the opportunity to present our side."

Sandusky also will waive his arraignment, which had been scheduled for Jan. 11, Amendola said. He remains under house arrest.

More on Sandusky:

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9422740-penn-state-sex-abuse-scandal-sandusky-legal-move-raises-questions-about-strategy

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Mark Kuban Welkomes Khloe and Lamar to Dallas; DASH, Rob Kardashian to Follow?


While Kobe Bryant laments the loss of a key Lakers teammate, both Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian are being welcomed enthusiastically by members of the Dallas Mavericks organization.

First, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle told the press that Khloe was his favorite Kardashian. Now, former Dancing with the Stars contestant/team owner Mark Cuban has come out and told Extra:

"She's welcome with open arms. We can't wait to have the whole family, can't wait to have Khloe and Lamar, we'll go from there."

Dallas Bound

And it sounds like the team will have more family members to welcome soon. Odom told Us Weekly that Rob Kardashian will soon join him and Khloe in Dallas, while various sources report the Kardashians are psyched about the trade because it allows them to expand their DASH franchise to a new city.

We'll give NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki the final word on the trade for now:

"[Odom] can bring the ball up, he can shoot, he can post. He's a great decision-maker with the ball and one of the best passing big men in the league today. So, we should be able to have fun with each other."

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/12/mark-kuban-welkomes-khloe-and-lamar-to-dallas-dash-rob-kardashia/

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Swedish Group Offers Insurance for Public Transit Scofflaws ...

We shouldn't be (and note to our lawyers, aren't!) applauding clever modes of mass transit fare evasion, but you've got to give Swedish nonprofit Planka.nu props for their inventive, albeit illegal strategy for doing so.

It costs around $115 a month for a subway pass in Stockholm. But as the New York Times Magazine noted over the weekend, Planka.nu (which roughly translates to "free ride now") has been offering a $15 a month insurance plan that will pay the $175 fine for any policyholders who get caught not having paid their fare. Planka.nu has commuters' best interests at heart: they think public transit should be free. Swedish authorities beg to differ and have spent millions to replace those turnstiles with hop-resistant glass panels.

But Planka hasn't given up their crusade. In fact, they've posted videos on YouTube with instructions on the best ways to sneak past the new gates. It doesn't seem so hard to do?it's just up to riders to decide if the some $1200 in annual savings is worth the risk.

Source: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/12/insuring-free-ride-stockholm/654/

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Shoppers say 'ho-hum' not 'ho-ho-ho' to sales

In this Dec. 1, 2011 photo, employees of Uniqlo paste promotional information in a window of the retailer's New York store. Used to be, customers would come running when stores cut prices. But Americans have become increasingly blas? about bargains during this holiday season.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

In this Dec. 1, 2011 photo, employees of Uniqlo paste promotional information in a window of the retailer's New York store. Used to be, customers would come running when stores cut prices. But Americans have become increasingly blas? about bargains during this holiday season.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

In this Dec. 1, 2011 photo, employees of Uniqlo paste promotional information in a window of the retailer's New York store. Used to be, customers would come running when stores cut prices. But Americans have become increasingly blas? about bargains during this holiday season. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

In this Dec. 1, 2011 photo, an Ann Taylor store window is shown, in New York. Used to be, customers would come running when stores cut prices. But Americans have become increasingly blase about bargains during this holiday season. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

In this Dec. 1, 2011 photo, women pass a Banana Republic store window, in New York. Used to be, customers would come running when stores cut prices. But Americans have become increasingly blase about bargains during this holiday season. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Sale, schmale.

Used to be, customers would come running when stores cut prices. But these days, more Americans are becoming blas? about bargains.

Jennifer Beasley recently left a Toys R Us in Cary, N.C., unimpressed by the retailer's offers that day of 50 percent discounts on things like a $150 Sylvania tablet computer and a $45 My Baby Alive Doll.

"The sales just aren't as good this year," says Beasley, 30, who has three children. "It's almost not worth getting up."

People have been shopping more than ever this holiday season, largely because of a flood of sales. But Americans have become so used to deep discounts that they expect each sale to be bigger and better than the last. That means retailers will likely have to keep slashing prices, which could hurt their bottom line.

"I think they're going to have to continue to do the kind of 'come on' pricing that you saw on Black Friday," or the day after Thanksgiving, says Alison Paul, head of consulting firm Deloitte's U.S. retail practice.

Merchants already are rolling out big holiday sales. The Body Shop is letting customers spin a wheel of chance to win different discounts, including offers of "buy three, get three." The Gap is selling many of its pajamas, kids' hoodies and men's cardigans for 50 percent off. And Target has Barbie, Thomas the Tank Engine and many of its other toy brands for "buy one, get one half off."

But shoppers are yawning at deals that once excited them.

"The ads and the sales ? I think it's all hype," says Karen Finch of Gresham, Ore., who is waiting to buy a tablet for her son until closer to Christmas Day because she thinks the discounts on Amazon.com ? 48 percent off a $500 Blackberry version, for instance ? aren't good enough. "There's no substance."

To be sure, consumers' perceptions of deals don't always jibe with reality. Most retailers decline to discuss their pricing strategy because of competitive reasons, but research by analysts at Jefferies & Co. and other firms found that many deals this year are as good as ? if not better than ? last year's.

For instance, American Eagle offered 40 percent off everything all day on Black Friday ? better than the 20 percent off until noon that it offered for the past two years, according to Jefferies analysts. The average discount at Best Buy on Black Friday was almost 45 percent, up from about 34 percent last year. The average discount at Wal-Mart was about 47 percent, better than last year's average of 43 percent.

And anyway, what shoppers say and do often are two different things. Consumers told Deloitte in September that they planned to spend about 5 percent less on Christmas this year. But the reality so far is different: Americans spent $52.4 billion over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the highest total ever recorded for that period and 16 percent greater than last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

"You can't always listen to what they say," says Allen Adamson, managing director at the branding company Landor Associates. "What counts is what they do at checkout."

Indeed, Atty Zschau of Portland, Ore., has been disappointed with the holiday sales she's seen so far this year. But instead of going home empty-handed on Black Friday, she shelled out $800 ? full price ? for a Dell laptop that will be shared among her family.

"We're normally 'deal' people," says Zschau, an acupuncturist. But, "All the stuff that was on sale was not what we wanted."

The discontent with discounts comes at a time when many Americans are struggling with job losses and stagnant wages. Many shoppers simply have less money to spend this holiday season: The median U.S. household income was $49,445 last year, down from $50,303 two years before.

And deals just don't seem as good if the iPad tablet computer you want is still outside of your budget. A $1,000 TV marked down 20 percent might seem like a good deal for a shopper who has $800 to spend. But it's not such a fab find for someone with only $700 in his pocket.

"Discounts are supposed to mean, 'I can get it,'" says Michael Norton, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in consumer psychology. "So if you can't get it, it doesn't feel like a very good discount."

Cost-conscious shoppers also have a long memory about the better sales they've seen in the last few years, says Alison Jatlow Levy, retail strategist with consulting firm Kurt Salmon. For instance, teen retailer Aeropostale offered discounts on Black Friday of 50 percent off everything and another 20 percent off until mid-afternoon. But that may not have been enough for Aeropostale shoppers who remember that the chain slashed prices up to 70 percent all day in previous years.

"Customers probably remember that last year things were 60 percent off, and this year maybe they're only 25 or 40 percent off," Levy says of some store discounts. "But those things probably weren't 60 percent off until closer to Christmas."

Rebecca Walden of Birmingham, Ala., learned that lesson the hard way. Last year, she and her husband stayed up late on Thanksgiving night buying Christmas gifts online for their daughter, who was then one-years-old. They were patting themselves on the back about the discounts of 10 to 20 percent off they got on toys like a rocking horse, a play kitchen and a set of 150 building blocks. That is, until they found many of those same items on sale for half off later in the season.

Walden, 33, decided not to repeat that mistake. So she's done virtually none of her Christmas shopping yet. She's waiting it out for a deal on a few items, like a sale on a Wiggles guitar, which generally runs at least $65.

"I'm not convinced they've hit rock-bottom prices yet and Christmas is still several weeks away," Walden says. "I think the phrase is 'playing chicken.'"

____

Sarah Skidmore reported from Portland, Ore. Christina Rexrode reported from New York.

Follow AP retail coverage at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Retail.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-07-Sale%20Fatigue/id-1e892ef873fe4cd78c5b5dc099eedfb7

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Futurity.org ? Guys' brains change after violent gaming

"For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home," says Yang Wang, assistant research professor of radiology and imaging sciences at Indiana University. "The affected brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior." (Credit: iStockphoto)

INDIANA U. (US) ? After playing violent video games for one week, young adult men showed signs of sustained changes in a region of the brain associated with emotional control, a new study shows.

This is the first time researchers at Indiana University?a group that has studied the effects of media violence for more than a decade?have conducted an experimental study that showed a direct relationship between playing violent video games over an extended period of time and a subsequent change in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control.

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to players has been debated for many years, even making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. There has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.

?For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home,? says Yang Wang, assistant research professor of radiology and imaging sciences. ?The affected brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior.?

For the study, 28 healthy adult males, age 18 to 29, with low past exposure to violent video games were randomly assigned to two groups of 14. Members of the first group were instructed to play a shooting video game for 10 hours at home for one week and refrain from playing the following week. The second group did not play a video game at all during the two-week period.

Each of the 28 men underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis at the beginning of the study, with follow-up exams at one and two weeks. During fMRI, the participants completed an emotional interference task, pressing buttons according to the color of visually presented words.

Words indicating violent actions were interspersed among nonviolent action words. In addition, the participants completed a cognitive inhibition counting task. These tasks, called Stroop tasks, test an individual?s ability to control cognitive flexibility and attention.

The results showed that after one week of violent game play, the video game group members showed less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe during the emotional Stroop task and less activation in the anterior cingulate cortex during the counting Stroop task, compared to their baseline results and the results of the control group after one week.

After the video game group refrained from game play for an additional week, the changes to the executive regions of the brain returned closer to the control group, say the researchers, who presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

?These findings indicate that violent video game play has a long-term effect on brain functioning,? says Wang. ?These effects may translate into behavioral changes over longer periods of game play.?

Wang says that another important point of the study was that the young men were supplied with laptop computers and played at home in their ?natural environment.? Some of the previous research was done with players participating in a lab setting.

The research is supported by the Center for Successful Parenting.

More news from Indiana University: http://www.indiana.edu/news/

Source: http://www.futurity.org/top-stories/guys-brains-change-after-violent-gaming/

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Jimmy Fallon Continues Our Top 50 2011 TV Characters

'X Factor' castoff Astro and 'Dance Moms' personality Abby Lee Miller also make MTV News' list, counting down all week long.
By MTV News staff


Jimmy Fallon
Photo: NBC

MTV News' Top 50 TV Characters of 2011 continues with a few must-include entries, as well as some visits from surprise guests.

"X-Factor" contestant Astro makes the cut this round as does "Dance Moms" favorite Abby Lee Miller, but you might be surprised to see certain sports and talk-show personalities who yapped their way onto our Best of 2011 list. Keep reading for the latest entries to our Top 50, and make sure to check out characters 50 to 41 over here.

40. Skip Bayless (ESPN's "First Take")
One of the nation's most respected sportswriters, Bayless got his start at the Miami Herald, eventually rising to prominence at the Los Angeles Times and followed by his coverage of the Cowboys for the Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald. Since many of you don't have an app for those papers, you might know Bayless as the perpetual devil's advocate on ESPN's "First Take." He started as a pundit on ESPN's "Cold Pizza" in a segment called "First Take," but thanks to his arguments with other journalists, athletes and even Lil Wayne, "Cold Pizza" evolved into "First Take." His divisive arguments — most recently his idolatry of Tim Tebow — have garnered the ire of plenty of sports fans, and Skip couldn't be any happier, especially since he's right more often than they'd care to admit. -Steven Roberts

39. Victoria Grayson ("Revenge")
Imagine Blair Waldorf 30 years older and transplanted to the Hamptons, and you've got the central villainess of ABC's newest guilty pleasure "Revenge." The Queen Bee of the tony enclave, Victoria rules with an iron (not to mention, diamond-laced) fist, scheming against anyone who dares get in her way (lovers and best friends included). But Victoria's no sociopath — fleeting flashes of guilt and sorrow betray more than a few vulnerable spots. While revenge-seeking Emily is the protagonist here, it's Madeleine Stowe's Victoria that steals scenes in this sudsy drama. -Amy Wilkinson

38. Marty Funkhouser ("Curb Your Enthusiasm")
Funk-man had a short-yet-rewarding arc this season. He commenced his time on "Curb" with a divorce (though they "had a beautiful marriage"), delivered one of the funniest lines of the season (when he asked Richard Lewis when he plans to look at his new girlfriend's face) and starred in what noted lawyer and academic Alan Dershowitz believes was an episode of television powerful enough to expedite peace in the Middle East — though Larry owed him such shine after leaving his dinner before dessert. -Rya Backer

37. Jimmy Fallon ("Late Night With Jimmy Fallon")
Outside of his portrayal of Barry "F---ing" Gibb on "The Barry Gibb Show," Jimmy Fallon didn't have the most memorable "Saturday Night Live" career. And then there was "Taxi" with Queen Latifah. So expectations weren't necessarily high when Fallon took over "Late Night" after Conan's all-too-brief promotion to "The Tonight Show." But that didn't stop Jimmy from making his show the most-talked-about the next morning either. His first move once he got the job was to hire the coolest band possible in the Legendary Roots Crew, who, along with the show's genius music bookers, have brought us amazing performances from Beyoncé, Odd Future and Justin Timberlake. His regular guests are all too eager to play along as well (Google "Gwyneth Paltrow rapping," please). His viral-worthy segments are perfect water-cooler fodder for those in bed before midnight and on blogs before 9 a.m. -Steven Roberts

36. Abby Lee Miller ("Dance Moms")
If Corky St. Clair and the God Warrior from "Trading Spouses" had a daughter, she'd resemble the human steamroller that is Abby Lee Miller, Pittsburgh's leading dance instructor for tweens. When Miller's not shrieking endlessly quotable gems like "Thou shall not lie, thou shall not steal, and thou shall not disrespect Abby," she's placing her young students' headshots in a pyramid formation based on how much their moms pissed her off that week. But Miller's irresistible crazy shines brightest when she dreams up wildly inappropriate routines for 8-year-olds to "emotionally execute." If "Where Have All the Children Gone?" is not nominated for an Emmy, then voters don't have a soft spot for "child suicide" like Abby Lee Miller. -Jim Cantiello

See our Top 50 TV Characters of 2011, 50 to 41!

35. Mags Bennett ("Justified")
The Bennett matriarch isn't just one of the finest villains in the two-season run of "Justified," but one of the greatest baddies on television all year long. There's a reason nobody batted an eye when Margo Martindale took home the Best Supporting Actress Emmy earlier this year; her Mags is a cold, calculated crime boss dressed up in hillbilly clothing, not one to be underestimated, certainly not when she has the Bennett boys at her disposal. And even though she'll typically lean on one of her three sons to handle the dirty work, don't discount Mags' ability to break bad on her lonesome — needless to say, you should always pass on her apple pie. -Josh Wigler

34. Astro ("The X Factor")
"The X Factor" worked hard to be the opposite of the aging "American Idol," and nothing said "We don't do karaoke" like casting a teenage MC from Brooklyn who spit original rhymes. Each week, Brian "The Astronomical Kid" Bradley, a.k.a. Astro, brought grade-A drama with his defiant hip-hop swagger and dynamic, head-turning verses. The 15-year-old trailblazer wrote his own lyrics and wore his own headphones, and when he landed in the bottom two, he felt like the judges didn't deserve to hear his "survival song." So he stopped the live show — and his perceived front-runner momentum — dead in its tracks. Whether you thought he was an arrogant dope or just plain dope (like we do), there's no denying 'Stro made "The X Factor" one of TV's most exciting, unpredictable competitions in a long time. -Jim Cantiello

33. Kalinda Sharma ("The Good Wife")
Brains. Sexiness. Attitude. Mystery. Add those up and throw in a leather jacket and a pair of knee-high boots and you've got Kalinda Sharma, the in-house investigator at Lockhart Gardner, the law firm at the center of "The Good Wife." Scene-stealing British actor Archie Panjabi won an Emmy last year for playing Kalinda, who remains cloaked in mystery even well into the show's third season. We saw some chinks in Kalinda's armor recently when her friendship with Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) fell apart — she did sleep with Alicia's husband, after all. But those signs of vulnerability make Kalinda even more intriguing. -Tami Katzoff

32. Carla Hall ("Top Chef: All-Stars")
Hootie hoo! Fan favorite Carla Hall found herself back on "Top Chef" for the All-Stars edition of the competition this year, and boy, were we glad to have her back! Carla is always a great source of much-needed comic relief, but for "All-Stars," she proved she's a culinary force to be reckoned with, making it all the way to the finals. -Kevin P. Sullivan

31. A ("Pretty Little Liars")
Never has a text message been so ominous than at the thumbs of A on "Pretty Little Liars." The mystery of the unseen menace is the central plotline of ABC Family's frothy series, and theories abound as to his/her identity — from murderer to dead teen come back to life. It's likely we've already met the treacherous texter, but producers have been clear that we won't know A's true identity for a while (perhaps series' end) — even more reason to keep tuning in week after week. -Amy Wilkinson

MTV will reveal the best artists, songs and movies of the year. Come to MTV News each day to see more big reveals and check out more of MTV's Best of 2011 music, TV, movies and news coverage.

Related Videos Related Photos

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1675390/jimmy-fallon-best-of-2011.jhtml

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